It was an absolute joy to celebrate LGBT+ History Month with Club Kali, and meet the incredible people behind the network. I'm looking forward to visiting their exhibition later this year!

Thanks also to Club Kali's archive partner, The Bishopsgate Institute @bishopsgateinst.bsky.social, who continue to support people and communities to document their histories and tell stories that matter.

Projects like these that enable people to tell their stories are thanks to UK Lottery Players, who have contributed over £42.6m to heritage projects in Islington alone since the Heritage Fund was founded in 1994.

On Saturday, we enjoyed chai and samosas while listening to the legendary DJ Ritu tell stories from her career as a DJ, we created a tapestry which will contribute to their exhibition in September, and we watched a documentary, Discovering Kali, produced for their 25th anniversary of the network.

Club Kali was awarded a grant from the The National Lottery Heritage Fund last year for their project, Where East meets West, to document and archive their history across the last three decades. The hard work that has gone into this project is evident.

Thanks to the dedication, perseverance and talent of Club Kali's founders, it has evolved beyond just a club night, into a community and network that continues to provide a safe space and source of support for the South Asian LGBTQ+ community today.

On Saturday, I attended Club Kali's LGBT+ History Month celebration at Islington Museum. Club Kali started out in the 1990s, providing a safe environment for LGBTQ+ South Asian people to come together. At the time, spaces like this didn't exist, so it attracted people from all over the country.